Use of the Central Square in Tirana During One Century of Political

This article was downloaded by: [UQ Library] On: 19 February 2015, At: 16:40 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Planning Perspectives Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rppe20 Urban design, ideology, and power: use of the central square in Tirana during one century of political transformations Dorina Pojania a Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Department of Urbanism, Delft University of Technology, PO Box 5030, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands Published online: 09 Apr 2014. Click for updates To cite this article: Dorina Pojani (2015) Urban design, ideology, and power: use of the central square in Tirana during one century of political transformations, Planning Perspectives, 30:1, 67-94, DOI: 10.1080/02665433.2014.896747 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02665433.2014.896747 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. 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Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions Planning Perspectives, 2015 Vol. 30, No. 1, 67–94, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02665433.2014.896747 Urban design, ideology, and power: use of the central square in Tirana during one century of political transformations ∗ Dorina Pojani Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Department of Urbanism, Delft University of Technology, PO Box 5030, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands (Received 14 February 2013; final version received 8 January 2014) This article recounts the history of urban design in the centre of Tirana, the capital of Albania, during five political periods (Ottoman Empire, Italian domination, communist regime, post- communist anarchy, and Western-style planning). Starting in the 1910s, successive governments have imposed their urban design visions for a grand city centre and tried to erase the built heritage of their predecessors, thus creating an eclectic space. In the post- communist era, the city government has made attempts to develop a new grand vision for its use but has met with failure. The author argues that the reasons for this outcome lay in the contemporary nature of the state, as well as the nature of development in a market economy. Keywords: city centres; public space; monumentality; totalitarianism; Tirana; Albania Introduction By European standards, Tirana is a relatively young city. When it became the capital of Albania in 1920, it was a small town of 17,000 inhabitants. Today, it is a metropolis of nearly one million inhabitants. Within a century, Tirana has experienced the rise and demise of the Ottoman Empire, fascism, and communism, and (since 1990) the rise of consumerism. This article is about the transformation of its centre, which has been remade several times to mirror the transformations that occurred in Albanian politics and society.1 Following Albania’s independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1912, subsequent totalitarian governments, each bringing a new ideology and a new set of rules, imposed their grand Downloaded by [UQ Library] at 16:40 19 February 2015 urban design visions on Tirana’s central square and main boulevard and tried to erase the heritage of their predecessors. Each totalitarian regime succeeded in leaving its mark, but the grand visions of the new democratic regime have been largely unaccomplished. The result is an eclectic and unfinished space that comprises an assortment of layers, styles, and iconographies from different eras, and a perpetual flow of traffic. In the last decade, the city government has made attempts to develop a new grand vision for the use of the city centre. However, these visions, based on an engrained tradition of central planning by an all-powerful government and a potent nostalgia about the past role of the centre, have met with failure. This failure is the outcome of the contemporary nature of the state, as well as the nature of spatial arrangements in a market economy. None of the post-communist governments has been able to exercise definitive control and affirm its power by bringing ∗Email: [email protected] # 2014 Taylor & Francis 68 D. Pojani a workable vision and resources to readapt the centre to fulfil an attractive role in the new context in which it must function. A pluralistic e´lite, which replaced the monolithic powers of the past eras, is inept at crafting a new collective meaning, to which contemporary society can anchor its identity in flux. While the centre fits the needs of totalitarian regimes, it is out of place with the logic and the use of centrally located space in a market economy. Now, urban uses of space are dominated by inhabitants uninterested in political demonstrations and parades, which require purposely built large plazas and wide avenues. Private developers have taken over the role of the state in creating public life outside the city’s central square. In the time-honoured tradition of many Southern European cities, the defining character of these new communal spaces is a combination of strol- ling, consumerism, intimacy, and so-called ‘third places’ (cafe´s, bars, clubs, and the like) accommodated in narrow streets, back alleys, and refurbished courtyards. By contrast, the centre is a sterile space. The urban planning and design of the centre of Tirana can be divided into three periods: Italian ‘protectorate’ (1920s–1945), communist police state (1945–1990), and pluralistic market economy (1990 to the present). While the current academic literature on the design of the centre is limited, debates on this issue abound in the media, particularly in newspapers, TV, and the Internet. Numerous newspaper and magazine articles, as well as a few design reports, written between 2002 and 2012 by Albanian and foreign architects, designers, journal- ists, and political analysts, were identified and pieced together to reconstruct the public discourse related to Tirana’s centre (Table 1).2 The centre of Tirana Italian efforts to Westernize the centre In 1912, Albania declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire after five centuries of domination, during which it had absorbed Ottoman culture (Figure 1). Eight years later, Tirana, which was a small town with 17,000 inhabitants and an area of 3 square kilometres, became its capital. Several commentators described it as little more than ‘a big village’.3 The town centre consisted of a lively bazaar of two or three hectares that dated from the 1700s, in which most stores were clustered. A description is provided by an Italian geographer Downloaded by [UQ Library] at 16:40 19 February 2015 in 1941, who notes that the bazaar had changed little since Ottoman times: [t]he bazaar, which makes up the heart of the city, is one of a kind ...A maze of streets and paths, flanked by plain cottages, often single-storey, with a shop opening on the street and a backroom serving as storage and workshop. Tiny shops next to each other, in two rows on every street, over the entire quarter.4 Landmarks in the centre included a very small mosque and a clock tower, which were built in 1789 and 1830, respectively. The residential neighbourhoods that surrounded the centre, especially in the east and northeast, were created piecemeal in a typical Muslim vernacular style. The main roads radiated from the bazaar all the way out of town.5 The regime of the newly independent state wished to transform the town into a Western European capital based on professional concepts and plans. Austrian consultants, who were hired in 1923, prepared a plan to widen and straighten urban roads and ‘rationalize’ the Planning Perspectives 69 Table 1. Empirical research. Year Article/report 2002 de Campo, Francesca. “Tirana Rinasce.” Nel Blu, November. 2003 Arosio, Enrico. “Tirana Lumie`re.” Klan, September 25. 2003 Jano, Agron. “Pe¨r Qe¨ndre¨n e Tirane¨s dhe Planin Rregullues te¨Saj.” Gazeta Shqiptare, August 2003. 2003 Ke¨lliçi, Ermal. “Qe¨ndra e Tirane¨s dhe Historia.” Gazeta Shqiptare, July 8. 2003 Klosi, Ardian. “Jeruzalemi Yne¨.” Shekulli, February 2. 2003 Plasari, Aurel. “Replike¨me Dr. Klosin: Nde¨rtimi i Kishave ne¨Qe¨nde¨r te¨ Tirane¨s.” Shekulli, February 25. 2003 Vlahou, Evi. “Tirana: EkeıÓ´ pou Ta O´ neira TiS Nto´ras E´ ginan Pragmatiko´tiTa.” BHMagazino 146, July 27. 2004 Agalliu, Lorjan. “Maketi i Franceze¨ve dhe ‘Ule¨rima’ e Edvard Munch.” Tema, May 6. 2004 Architecture Studio. “A New Master Plan for Tirana City Centre.” City of Tirana, report. 2004 Cuyvers, Wim. “Tirana – Mercedes, Houses and Rubbish.” Archis 4: 39–43. 2004 Fevziu, Blendi. “Tirana mes Brasinit dhe Parisit.” Korrieri, February 25. 2004 Jano, Agron.

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